The premise of shrek is that it’s a blatant anti-disney movie. Guys at SKG were out to thrash disney’s fairy-tale, kids-only domain of animation and come out with a truely great animation movie for all ages. Disney movies are ALWAYS about kids (toy story I/II, peter pan, jungle book , u name it) This was pitted head-to-head with Monster’s Inc, so it HAD to find a different niche to succeed.
You see it everywhere in the movie .. smart dialogues, a very ROCK superb soundtrack, very subtle but numerous references to every imaginable fairy-tale character, weird sense of humor(my personal fav is the one in which the nested eggs turn into omelettes), a non-fairy-tale ending. you’ll start seeing those nuances if you watch the movie in this light.
The relatioship between the main trio Shrek-donkey-princess is very nicely crafted and sensitively done (atleast as sensitive as shrek can get). First meeting between both shrek-donkey and shrek-princess are memmorable. A very nice choice of background songs say much without the characters having to utter a word.
I have been hooked onto non-disney animation ever since. Other classic example of this is bug’s life Vs Antz. Even a kid can tell which of it is a disney movie :) Other notable set of films is by Aardman animations, Nick Park’s studio. (e.g. Chicken Run)
Have you guys seen ’’Creature Comforts’’ ?! Check it out and others on : https://atomfilms.com
Hey now you’re an All Star get your game on, go play